


Love in the Waste

by dancinbutterfly



Series: Love in the Waste [1]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Ableist Language, Alpha Furiosa, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Beta everyone else, But it will have a happy ending, Chains, Cunnilingus, F/M, Female Friendship, Gang Rape, Gift Giving, Kissing, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Male/female consensual anal sex, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Miss Giddy - Freeform, Mpreg, Muzzles, Non-consensual Orgasm, Off screen cannibalism, Omega Max, Oral Knotting, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sad with a Happy Ending, Self-Lubrication, Watching, Wife!Max, Wordburger, incestuous elements, this is not a pretty story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:10:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 19,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4075606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rare Omega male, Max is added to the Wives when he is captured by the Citadel. It goes about as well as you'd expect. When Furiosa frees the Wives, Max goes with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Omega male. Fertile. Successful birth prior to capture.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this [prompt](http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=269762#cmt269762) on the mad max kink meme. I literally had to write this. I couldn't not. It's too damn good.

The man is sprawled face down on the new bed and Angharad sits beside him, studying the tattoos on his back. Most of them don’t matter much to her. Blood type, height, etc. But he is bound, chained, muzzled and here in the vault with them so she has to find out why and there it is, low on his back. **Omega male. Fertile. Successful birth prior to capture.**

She pets his hair and tries not to cry. She wonders where this feral’s child is. Dead probably. She wonders if he had a mate. She hopes not and she hopes so at the same time. Loss is pain but sometimes pain is worth it.

“Why’s he here,” Cheedo asks, standing near the piano and gripping her arms tightly. She’s always so afraid and Angharad tries to help her be brave. There’s only so much she can manage. “No men are allowed here.”

“He’s like us,” Toast says, sprawled on her bed. Joe never fucks her on it so she spends a lot of time on it, making it her own, her sanctuary of comfort. “A breeder.”

“Men can’t be breeders.” Cheedo protests. “Men do the breeding.” 

“Sure they can. Omega men used to be around all the time before the world died,” Toast says. Toast is the one who goes to Miss Giddy on her own, even more than Angharad. She knows things that none of them do, things they don’t want to know. “Half the time they have litters.”

The Dag blinks at Toast from her spot on the floor, drawing with precious chalk, flowing designs that mimic the leaves in the gardens and grow houses. “Litters?”

“More than one baby. More than two usually,” Toast tells her. She holds her hands out in a circular gesture over her stomach. “Miss Giddy says that before the end, they were prizes.”

“He is not a prize,” Angharad snaps. “He is not a thing. None of us are things.” The Dag and Capable echo her. 

Seconds later, he comes awake all at once, grunting and jerking back from her touch. The muzzle is a monstrous metal thing made of bars that intersect and cover his face up to his eyes and his hands are shackled together, chained to the bed. In his eyes there is panic as he jerks on the chains but she reaches out and takes his face in her hands, shushing him as she does so. He doesn’t stop shaking his wrists but the wrest of him stills and he meets her gaze, panicked but steady. He’s not crazy. If he were crazy he wouldn’t be afraid.

“I wish I could tell you you were safe,” Angharad tells him. “You’re not. But none of the women in this room will hurt you. We take care of each other. You’re one of us now and we’ll take care of you too.”

“Who are you?” he asks. His voice is a growl but the low rumble is actually rather lovely. She could grow to like listening to it if he is the type to talk. She doesn’t think he is, though, more’s the pity.

“You don’t know anything do you, about where you are, who you’re dealing with?” Capable asks, genuinely surprised. She walks over and kneels beside the bed where he can see her. Angharad can’t help but be proud of her instincts.

“No.”

“You’re one of Immortal Joe’s wives now,” Toast calls, not moving from her reclined position. “Full life breeders have three chances to bear him a healthy son after that, we join the milk mothers. Your his property now.”

“You’re no one’s property. You’re his captive. There’s a difference,” Angharad says sharply. “Never forget.”

“Never forget,” the Dag repeats like its a prayer.

“So rape.” He says. “Hm.”

“Yes,” Capable says. “Likely soon. I don’t know what he’ll do to you but to us-“

“Heat inducers,” Toast says. “They probably already dosed him. By the time Joe gets here, he probably won’t want to say no.”

Angharad watches his face, watches resignation steal over his features. Toast is right. May the old gods and the new damn Joe for doing this to him. At least he never made them want it.

“What’s your name?” Capable asks. The whole room goes quiet as they wait for an answer. He says nothing. 

“We have to call you something,” Toast says, ever the reasonable one.

“We’ll call you Love.” Angharad says. “Will you answer to that?”

He stares at her with wide eyes but nods once. She kisses his forehead. “Rest then, Love. The first days will not be easy.”


	2. It’s his alone.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first breeding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has decided to write itself and is growing super fast. Don't ask me I just do what it tells me.
> 
> Warning!!! GRAPHIC NON-CONSENUAL SEX ACTS OF VARYING TYPES INCLUDING NON-CONSENSUAL ORGASM. THERE IS ALSO MENTAL DISASSOCIATION. PLEASE READ WITH YOUR SELF-CARE IN MIND.

When Miss Giddy asks Max’s name he lies and says its Michael. He does not want his jailers to know his secrets. Bad enough they know what he is. Bad enough they know anything about Sprog. He won’t give them his name. He won’t give them Love either. That is a gift from the Wives and it’s his alone. 

So. 

Michael. 

He refuses to eat and when he refuses, he is held down, his nose is pinched closed and he is force fed. There is the bitterness of medicine in each mouthful and he knows that there are heat inducers in his food. The bitterness is in his water, which he refuses to drink.

The grotesque mutant of a man that is Immortal Joe watches with approval. He fucks a different one of the girl each day. They do not cry out. They do not weep. They go dead in their eyes and after he leaves, the others crowd around, clean her up, surround her with pure affection and shoulders on which to shed the tears she would not show Immortal Joe. 

Max wants to join them but he is shackled to the bed, the chain extending only far enough to reach the bucket so courteously provided for him. So the girls come to him. Careful of his muzzle, they pile atop him and curl into his stomach, his thigh, his armpit, his neck. They call him Love and they tell him it will be all right. When they say it, the words sound almost like truth. It’s enough to drive a crazy man even madder.

In the end, none of it matters. By the fifth day he is so desperately thirsty he is guzzling down the drugged water. By the seventh he is sweating and panting and can feel slick forming inside him. 

“Don’t,” he growls, when Angharad tries to comfort him with a cool cloth. “It won’t help. Don’t waste the water.”

“What can we do, Love?”

“Nothing. Just leave me alone.”

Joe comes that night. His laugh is deep and his cock is hard. Max isn’t in full heat yet so he still has fight in him. He elbows Joe in the gut and head butts him so hard he falls off the bed. Once he’s on the ground he kicks him in the gut until five of his War Boys pull him off. He’s howling and kicking as they pin him naked to the bed and hold his legs open.

Joe is bleeding but he is also laughing. “So strong. Imagine how ferocious our pups will be, eh bitch?”

When Joe isn’t fucking him that first night of his heat, he calls his son Rictus in and that is worse. The man has the mind of a child, the body of a brute and he scares the other wives terribly. Max is grateful he keeps Rictus’s focus off them but he hates that another foul touch joins Joe’s on his skin. 

Because Joe has not just turned him into a brood sow, he’s made him into a teaching aid. He has his boys flip Max on his stomach, pulls him up on his knees and shows his son what an Omega bitch looks like on the inside. He takes his son’s thick fingers and guides them inside and Max hates the pleasure it brings him. Hates the way Rictus stares with awe and smiles as he strokes himself in time with his thrusting fingers.

“If the bitch gives me good pups, you will have him next,” Joe promises Rictus as Max comes around his fingers into the sheets and shaking with hated pleasure. “You and Michael will give me grandchildren the likes of which have not been seen since before the bombs.”

Rictus beams, bouncing on his toes like a child. “Look Dad! Look! I made him shoot.”

Joe affectionately slaps Rictus’s bald head. “Good boy. Now move so I can breed this bitch like he needs.”

As Joe shoves in on nothing but Max’s own slick, Max thinks of Jessie. He thinks of her inside him, kissing his neck, signing “I’m crazy about you” and meaning it. His whole body shakes beneath the grip of his captors with each of Joe’s thrusts and Max thinks about how Jessie would knot him so full that his belly would swell with her semen and she would push on it gently and laugh when he groaned. He loved it then, gloried in being an an Omega with a body is built to be bred. 

So long as Max keeps his eyes shut and doesn’t listen to Joe’s infernal breathing machine or the whispers of the Wives watching, he’s with his late wife, and the pleasure he can’t escape is his. It’s his and its nothing to be ashamed of. It’s his. It’s his. It’s his. 

He comes again with a shout and Joe laughs, triumphant because he does not know. He will never know that Max wasn’t with him. He was hundreds of days and miles away. Max pushes his face in the sheets and whispers her name so low even though closest War Boy cannot hear him.

They leave him in his wet spot, ass up, naked and chained. He is exposed with slick and semen dripping down his thighs when Immortan Joe pulls out. He has no knot but Betas can impregnate Omegas just fine, Max knows. 

No one speaks to him but he can feel the eyes of the Wives and the War Boys and Rictus Erectus and Immortan Joe and Miss Giddy the wordburger all locked on him. Somehow this is worse than the rape itself - the audience of his aftermath, knowing that his hole is still hungry and his heat is still burning through him. 

“Miss Giddy, bring in Furiosa,” Joe declares. “His lust will need tending to and I will not leave him with any of the men. I will not have my property damaged by an unnecessary heat delirium.”

“Yes Immortan.”

“My lovelies,” he says and Max hears five whimpering sounds in the silence. Then there is a chorus of pounding footsteps, the slam of the vault door, and silence. 

Angharad is by his side a second later, draping the blanket from her own bed over him. She smoothes her fingertips over his eyebrows. “Love, speak to me. Please. Are you all right? Say something, Love. Say anything.”

“Stop touching me.”

She drops her hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Feels too good,” he groans. “Don’t want- not from you. Never you, Angharad.” He calls her by her given name because names are important to Angharad. He needs her to understand what she means. Her sad smile and soft eyes tell him that she does. It allows him to relax if only incrementally. 

“Of course. And don’t worry about Furiosa. She won’t touch you either.”

“We’ll see,” he says. She’s clearly someone Immortan Joe trusts. Despite Angharad’s assurances, that makes her untrustworthy. At least for now.


	3. Be sure.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa tends to Love. Max gets his own brand of vengeance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUBIOUS CONSENT! DUBIOUS! SORTA CONSENSUAL BUT DUBIOUS DUE TO HEAT AND OTHER THINGS! READ WITH YOUR SELF-CARE IN MIND! Also, ableist language!

Furiosa is hit with the scent she hasn’t smelled in nearly seven thousand days. Omega. Omega in heat. Her knot hardens in her pants so fast its dizzying.

Angharad is at her side in an instant. She takes Furiosa’s hand and drags her into the room. 

“The new wife is an Omega.”

She squeezes Angharad’s hand and nods. “I know.”

Angharad’s eyes go huge with surprise. “How-“

“Can you help? The heat seems to be hurting Love.”

“Where is she?”

“He. He’s over here.” She pulls hard on her arm and runs. Furiosa only has to lengthen her stride and speed her step to keep up.

The closer she gets, the faster her heart beats. She’s never met a male Omega before. In the Green Place there were only women. They were beautiful and ripe and smelled like this, just like this yet with a world of difference.

She’d barely presented as an Alpha when she was taken and Beta noses weren’t honed enough to tell the difference between Alpha and Beta. With her missing arm she’d been passed over for sex slavery as defective so while her youth had not been without violence, her secret was safe from Immortan Joe and the War Boys. She’d never been more sure of it then when she reached the bedside of the writhing, sweating Omega. Joe would never let other fertile seed near one of his breeders.

She kneels to be eye level with him and touches the chain by his face. “Love,” she says quietly, “Can you hear me?” She knows sometimes the Wives get lost in their own minds, to save themselves. A heat rape would be as good a time as any to check out, ride the dust storms to the sky and never come back.

“Yeah.”

“I’m Imperator Furiosa. I was sent to care for you.”

He turns his head and looks at her. He his eyes are cold but not like a corpse’s, but like ice on coolant tanks, so cold it burns. “What? Joe sent his best girl to fist his new bride into submission? He tell you to fuck the horny bitch with your stump, hm?” Bitter sarcasm drips from every syllable, the filth somehow warped from self-degradative flaying rakes into throwing knives.

Oh. She likes him. He is frozen fire and she has spent so many days in the deserts blasting heat. “Something like that.”

He nods and the chains clink. It’s not an agreement, just an affirmation.

“Is that what you want?” she asks. Her family had just begun teaching her Heat Etiquette when she was taken. She doesn’t even know if she’s doing this right.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. It matters very much.” _More than anything ever has before_ she thinks. She’s taken lives before but that was always kill or be killed. Survival. She didn’t need to hurt this man, this Omega that her every cell screamed to protect, to survive. She needed to keep him safe from everything she could just like the rest of the Wives.

“Alpha,” he growls. “I want you to fuck me.”

She blinks. “You know.”

“Could smell you.” He moves fast, all clinking chains and rustling, he pushes his face into the pulse point in her wrist. 

Furiosa feels him inhale as well as she hears him. She ducks her head and places her own nose near his neck. She doesn’t touch him, but she breathes in his sweet, juicy smell. They’re built for each other, and her body is screaming for him. 

“Fuck me, Alpha,” he rumbles again. “Don’t let it be his. Don’t make me beg.”

“He’ll find out. He’ll kill her,” Toast protests from the other room.

“Will you tell?” Angharad demands. “Will any of you?” Out of the corner of her eye, Furiosa can see her place her hand on her gently curving belly. “If your child could be someone else’s, could be hers, wouldn’t you want it to be?”

She hears a gentle murmur of agreement and then the girls go quiet. Love is licking her wrist through the muzzle now, an old world act of foreplay between Alpha and Omega. Her Initiate Mother had taught her of such things. She wonders who taught Love. 

“Be sure.”

Hurling himself onto his back with a pound clanking of the chains, he looks at her with clear eyes. He’s soaked with sweat and between his legs is the shiny sheen of Omega lubricant. She watches as he parts his legs. Her breath catches. She’s never fucked someone before. In fact, she's only had sex consensually once, with a War Boy who died on Fury Road two days later.

“We don’t have to do this,” she says again. This still feels wrong. She wants to get him out of those chains. She wants him free to make this decision. 

“If a pregnancy is going to happen at all, Alpha seed takes over Beta every time,” he says. “Every single time. Before everything went to shit, scientists did tests.”

He bends his knees up to his chest. His hole is twitching and slick but clean. The Wives must have taken care of him after Joe had him.

“I won’t give that monster a baby,” he tells her, his voice stronger steel than the hitches on the war rig. “Now fuck me, Alpha. Save us both.”

Angharad appears at their side. She clutches Love’s hand. “You don’t have to do this. No one has to touch you that you don’t want.”

“Not about want. ’S about need. I need to beat him.”

Now that Furiosa can understand. She burns with hatred for him but she is patient. So, it seems, is Love. Joe should worry about the rage of the patient. 

She pulls her shirt off over her head, kicks off her boots and divests herself of her pants. Then she climbs onto Love’s bed and buries her face between his cheeks. 

He is wet and sweet and he opens beautifully on her tongue. He is quiet, so quiet, except for the creak of the bed as he grinds his hips into her face. She fucks him with her tongue and two fingers until he peaks, slick flooding her mouth and come shooting over his stomach. Only when he is lax and loose with orgasm does she slide between his thighs.

“We can still stop this.” Her clit is long and hard and rubbing against his hole, but she could still stop. “Say the word.”

“Don’t stop.” Then his heels are digging into her back, pulling her in deep. She gasps at the sensation. Its like coming home and blasting into space. She bites her lip so as not to cry out and rolls her hips in and in and in and watches his neck arch in pleasure. He starts to whisper short, dirty things at her - “yeah” and “there” and “fuck” and “deeper”.

His voice is rich and thick like pure motor oil and rumbles like a V-8. She wishes she’d worn her arm so she could touch his chest, his neck, his face. Since she can’t do so with her hands she does so with her lips and he lets out little choked whines until she reaches his mouth. Then he kisses her, sloppy and open mouths mashed together. 

He doesn’t bite at her or try and cut her lips with his teeth. He just breathes into their kiss and closes his eyes as she fuck, fuck, fucks him until one thrust too many has her knot locking inside him tight. He moans into her mouth and wraps his hands around the chains near his head, pulling on them so hard they rattle. His legs are tight around her and so is his ass. Furiosa is coming like she never has in her life and Love just takes it, whimpering in his throat and whispering for “more, more.” 

She licks over the mating scar on his neck that no doubt gave him away in the first place. His mate must be dead. They would have protected him otherwise. She soothes it with her lips and then kisses him again. He melts, turned inside out, into a puddle on the sheets. She stays propped on her arm and looks down at his lazily triumphant smile.

“What?”

“Full. Body likes it,” he says lethargically, the first time she’s seen him truly relaxed since she entered. “Strong.” His grimace is nearly a grin, and it is positively animalistic, teeth that glint in the sunlight. “Very strong. Feel it?”

“No,” she admits. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“Mm. You will.”


	4. We’ll take care of you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Immortan Joe returns as Max's heat ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING!! RAPE, PHYSICAL ASSAULT, CHAINS, MUZZLE, VERBAL ASSAULT

His heat is gone by sunrise the next day. That’s okay with Max. It means it works. He’s pregnant and it’s hers. It means he won.

He can stand to bear the woman Furiosa’s child. She was so careful, so desperate that he not be pressured or forced. She’s a good person. He can see it behind the rage in her eyes. She didn’t make a monster inside him.

Joe comes to him anyway. He brings half a dozen War Boys to hold him down, all of them salivating over the act of sex in front of them. Joe fucks him dry and makes him scream. He laughs and wheezes and fucks him till Max bleeds from his hole and involuntary tears sting his eyes.

“Your heat is over, Michael, isn’t it?” he rumbles, still inside him. He gently wipes a tear off Max’s face and brings it to his face, wiping it beneath his eyes like war paint, then again on the other side. 

Max says nothing. He spits in Joes face but but it lands on the grotesque teeth of his breathing apparatus. Joe chuckles. 

“Yes. It is. You carry my child already. He will be strong, a true heir to my kingdom. You will gentle in your pregnancy. You’ll see.”

_Eat shlanger and die_ , Max thinks but he says nothing. He won’t give Joe the satisfaction. He just glares.

“Am I not a generous man?” Joe asks his War Boys, his soft cock still nestled inside Max. “Do I not share the fruits of your labor with you? For your service, when his pregnancy is confirmed, each of you shall have a turn for your loyalty.”

The War Boys whisper worshipfully to Immortan Joe, “Praise him, Praise Joe, he lived, he died, he lived again.” And their grips become caresses. Max wants to vomit. 

The Wives are silent. He can’t blame them. He wouldn’t want to risk being shared if he were them. He would kill before he let them trade places with him, though he knew at least Angharad would try. 

“When your pregnancy is assured, your chains will be loosened.” He pets Max’s hair and Max shakes his head to try and shake him off. It doesn’t work. “Prove to me you can be a good boy and you will be free to move about with the rest of my wives.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“We shall see. I’ve broken all the others. I shall break you yet.” He pulls out and a stream of semen and blood trickles out of Max, wet and sticky. His gag reflex chokes him again but he fights it back into brutal submission. 

He will not be sick. He will not show weakness. He carries Furiosa’s child. He has already triumphed over this deluded man who thinks himself a godking. 

He smirks and Joe’s eyes smile back. “There’s a good boy.” He caresses Max’s face. Max shudders and Joe lingers. “I will return to you later.”

He finally pulls out and walks away. As soon as he’s out of reach, most of the War Boy’s release him. One of them leans forward and licks his neck. Max hits him in the head with both his bound hands. The War Boy laughs and stumbles away after his brothers. 

When the Vault doors swing shut, the Wives rush to him. They untangle the chains so he can slide off the bed. Toast and Dag bring fresh sheets from their own beds and change the linens. Capable rubs his back while Cheedo runs to get his clothes. Angharad takes his face in her hands so he has to meet her eyes. There is no sympathy there, no pity, only understanding. 

“What do you need?” she asks and he loves her. It’s the first time he’s loved anyone since the feral child died and he loves her fiercely. 

“Basin,” he croaks. “Empty. I need-“ He breaks off choking on bile. 

“Cheedo,” she calls. “A basin. Hurry.”

Cheedo is at his side with an empty bowl an instant. He heaves his guts up in a way that has nothing to the morning sickness he knows will hit him in the next three to four weeks. He can still feel Joe’s gentle hands on him and is ill until he is empty. It sticks to the metal of the muzzle. Toast is there with a wet cloth for the back of his neck and one to clean the muzzle when he’s done and sags against the side of the bed.

“Better?” Angharad asks. He nods. “Good.” She doesn’t say that they’ve all been there but he knows that they have. He leans into her hands and she leans into him until their foreheads touch. It is intimacy the likes of which he has not experienced in years.

“I won,” he croaks. “None of it matters. I beat him at his own game.”

“You did,” she agrees. “Will you spread your legs for me?” Angharad asks gently, placing her empty left hand on his knee. 

He nods and lets her part his thighs. He grits his teeth in pain as she cleans him up with the rag from his neck, but his arms are already strained, just from sitting on the floor. He’ll suffer the humiliation of needing help if it gets the remnants of Joe off of him. 

“Furiosa is a good choice of father.” Toast chimes in, an obvious attempt at distraction. “Your children will be Alphas and Omegas and rebuild what was lost.”

Angharad moves the cloth away and helps him pull on his pants. He can’t get a shirt or jacket with his hands bound but at least his dignity is covered. “Mm.”

“She’s going to get us out of here,” Angharad tells him. “She’s going to take us to the Green Place.”

“What?”

“The Green Place of Many Mothers,” The Dag says, excited for the first time since he’s known her. “Plants grow there and women aren’t used as milkers or breeders. They’re in charge. It’s safe there. We’ll live safe.”

“And you think you’re going to go to this…Green Place.” The Dag’s face is so open and joyful he feels bad being the bearer of reality. 

“We _are_ going to the Green Place,” she says, firm and unshakeable. “We don’t think. We know.”

“It’s just a matter of time,” Angharad says. “Furiosa is going to take us. We’re just waiting for her to get the war rig.”

“Does she come here often?” 

“Yes,” Capable says. “She’s here every two or three days. Miss Giddy says she comes to help take care of us so Joe lets her in.”

“Obviously he has no idea she’s an Alpha. She’d never be allowed in if he had any idea,” Toast says. She waves at the clawed chastity belt around her groin. “Not even this would be enough for him to let a fertile stud in here. If you weren’t feral he’d never let the War Boys in here.”

“He doesn’t share you?”

“Angharard is the only one pregnant,” Cheedo says. “He wants his own babies. We’re his treasures. He’d never share us.”

“He hasn’t had time to get attached, you’re feral, you’re already pregnant and you’re not a woman. He’ll probably get off on it.” Toast adds.

“They’re right,” Capable agrees. “I think the rules are different in his head for you.”

“It doesn’t matter though. We’ll take care of you,” Angharad tells him fiercely. “We will.”

“Nh.”

Angharad frowns. “You don’t believe me.”

Max would love to but they can’t do anything. Maybe they could find some oil so he’s not fucked dry but there’s nothing else. “You should take care of yourselves.”

“You’re one of us now. That makes you someone we take care of.” She drops her hand to run her fingertips over the raw places where the manacles had cut into his wrists. She soothes them with water from a bowl Toast brought. As it turns red with his blood, Max can’t help but think it a waste.


	5. That's a pretty delusion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angharad is witness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relatively light chapter. Hope you like it.

Angharad wants her son to be like Love. She wants him to be strong and fierce and proud and unbreakable. She wants him to have fierce eyes and a fearless heart. She is glad Love is here because he will help make that happen. 

Furiosa comes to them the next day. She is wearing her metal arm as she settles down beside him on his bed. Love doesn’t flinch, but they don’t touch. 

“How are you?” Furiosa asks him.

“Pregnant,” he says bluntly and Angharad smiles down at the game of connect the dots she’s playing in chalk with Cheedo. 

Toast, Capable and the Dag are listening to Miss Giddy tell stories in the greenhouses. They will keep her there until Furiosa leaves. Now it is the safest it will ever be for Love and Furiosa to talk.

“You already know?” She sounds so surprised. Angharad doesn’t know why. He told her that was the plan. She agreed. Why is she shocked?

“Heat lasts four to six days. Mine ended after you left.” 

“It did?”

“Mm.” He grunts. “Mean’s it took.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Max take Furiosa’s good hand in both of his. His chains clink as he places her hand on his stomach.

“So, it is mine,” she says. Her eyes shine. 

Angharad would touch her if she thought they would let her into their bubble. Instead she is witness. She will be their wordburger.

“You knew it would be,” Love tells her. “You don’t have to-“

“Don’t even say it,” Furiosa says, flexing her hand on his stomach, covering his hands with her prosthetic. “Don’t you dare.”

His eyes cast down at her touch. “Hm.”

“You and I don’t have to be anything you don’t want, but Joe isn’t raising my child. I’m taking you with me when we leave for the Green Place.”

“That’s a pretty delusion,” Love tells her, gruff and dismissive. 

“It’s real.” Angharad chimes in, with the same conviction as any War Boy in Valhalla. 

“It is,” Furiosa agrees. “I was born there.”

“Then why the hell are you here?”

“Do you think you were the only one taken?”

Silence stretches between the two of them. It’s not exactly companionable, but it’s not awkward either. Anghard shifts so she can see them more clearly. They’re staring into each others eyes, a conversation passing between them without words. 

When she speaks, her words are grim. “Word around the Citadel is that Joe is going to give you to his officers.”

He looks away. “Yeah.”

“I’m a general.” She says taking her hands off his skin. “I’ll be expected to participate.”

“I know. I don’t blame you.”

“How? I would.”

“I know what you are. You’re not like them.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Yeah.” He shrugs and his chains jangle. He holds them up. “Doesn’t mean we can stop it.”

“We will. I’m months away from being given the war rig. If you can just hold on, I’ll get us all out of here.”

“Oh, I’m getting out,” he says. “He can’t have this one.” His face says he'll die first and take his little one with him. 

Angharad couldn’t do that. She wants to live. She wants her son to live. He may be part Immortan Joe but he is also hers. Her love will overpower anything his father left behind. Good men can come from bad. She believes this with her whole heart. Miss Giddy has told her stories and she knows they are true. 

“How do you plan to do that?” Furiosa demands, skeptical and unimpressed.

“Dunno yet. I’ll figure it out.”

“Or you could just trust me.”

He turns away from her. “I don’t know you.”

She flashes with hurt, but covers it quickly. “You trusted me enough to breed you.”

“And that’s the extent of it.”

She doesn’t ask for him to trust her. She just stays beside him. Instead, she offers, “I won’t let the War Boys hurt you.”

“I think that’s the point. The hurt.”

“Don’t care. They can take it up with me.”

Angharad thrills. She loves it when Furiosa takes a stand. It is everything she aspires to be. 

“Imperator,” Love says softly.

“Yes.”

“You really want to help, make sure there’s something slick. I can take any hits.”

“No one is going to hit you.”

“Even so.”

“I can do that.” She turns to Angharad. “I’ll send word with Miss Giddy when it’s going to happen. You can use wound salve.”

“Right,” Angharad agrees. She doesn’t know why that never occurred to them before. They just did what Joe told them to, used spit to ease the way or oil he brought himself. 

“This doesn’t mean I’m not going to take you away from here,” Furiosa says. She lays her hand gently on his shoulder. “All of you. I’m getting all of you out.”

“Do this for me, hm?” Love asks. “And when it’s your turn, let me eat you out.” 

Three pairs of eyes blink at him. Even Cheedo is staring at him. Furiosa looks shaken. It’s a strange request.

“Okay. We can make that look convincing.”

“It’ll hide that you’re an Alpha,” Love adds. “And,” he swallows and his throat clicks, “I haven’t done it since I lost my mate.” It’s mine, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t need to.

“Of course.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

“I mean ever.”

“So do I.” 

He holds out his hands and she shakes it. The agreement is sealed. Angharad and Cheedo are their witness. It is painful and beautiful, the way Love takes control of his destiny. There is so much to learn from him and his quiet, incandescent dignity. 

Love smiles, actually smiles, seeming comforted for the very first time. “All right then.”

Furiosa smiles back, gentle as she so rarely is. “All right.”

Despite everything, Angharad can’t help but be pleased. They are going to the Green Place of Many Mothers, but until then, they are going to do more than make do. In their own small ways, they are fighting back.


	6. So pretty. So shiny. So chrome.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Immortan Joe makes good on his promise to the War Boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING!!! GANGRAPE! JOE/MAX, RICTUS/MAX

A week later, Furiosa sends Miss Giddy running to the Vault with barely an half an hour to spare. All she can do is hope that its enough time. The other favorites and high ranking War Boys are gathering with Rictus, Corpus and Joe at the head. 

She is the only woman. It doesn’t matter. She is Imperator. She is expected to partake. She is expected to enjoy.

“Is he soft?” Ace asks her. He’s her second and she wishes he were a better man in this moment but even if he were, they are all obligated. 

War Boys do not have women of their own and more than a few have been killed for fraternizing with each other. They all know that Joe trusted her to see “Michael” through his heat. They are excited and want to know what they’ll be fucking. Their curiosity and desperation combined with the years of Joe’s condition over powers any decency they could have possessed.

“Is he wet?” asks Gear, a War Boy she doesn’t know as well. “I heard from the wordburger that Omegas get wet.”

Before she can speak, there’s the whine of a microphone that cuts through the crowd. Immediately they all fall in line. 

“I am your redeemer,” Immortan Joe declares. “I alone will take you to the gates of Valhalla, shiny and chrome. In my love for you, I will give you a taste of the heavens, one of my own Wives will I share with you.”

They make the sign of the V-8 with their hands and chant his name. Furiosa mouths his name but does not give it voice. It gets lost in the chorus.

Love is brought out then, naked, chained, but with muzzle off for the first time. The War Boys dragging him behind them are young, at the peak of their strength. Love resists anyway and it takes eight of them to chain him spread-eagle face down to the floor of the chamber. 

Furiosa can tell from the set of his shoulders that Love knows what this room is normally used for. Miss Giddy said they once called it enhanced interrogation but torture is torture and they are going to torture Love in the best way Joe knows how. 

They watch as Joe crouches in front of Love. “Do you know why you are unmuzzled?”

“Better to eat you with, my dear.” He snarls snapping his teeth with vicious click. 

Immortan Joe laughs and ruffles his hair like a child. “Exactly, Michael. You’re such a good boy.” He grips Love’s hair at the root and pulls his neck back. “If you bite a single one of my War Boys, the Organic Mechanic will remove your teeth one at a time until your mouth is nothing but an empty fuckhole of gums and tongue. Do you understand?”

Love grunts in agreement and Joe lets go of his hair. He pets his face a few times with thick fingers, pawing over his cheeks and lips. “Make them happy and we will reduce your chains. Take it like a good bitch, my sweet juicy Omega. I know you can.”

Love says nothing. Hate burns in his eyes but he says nothing as is his way. His rebellion is in his silence. He knows that even with twenty War Boys waiting to fuck him, he will not give Joe what he wants. 

“Of course,” he says into the microphone, “I will go first and teach you how you breed an Omega slut.”

“Immortan Joe!”

He walks around behind Love, undoes his pants and fucks in without removing them. He laughs loud and long. “You are wet for me, Michael. Does this excite you? Are you hungry for cock?”

Love, of course, does not answer. He just takes it, the only sign of strain the tensing in the muscles of his legs and arms as he tries to brace himself on the floor. For her part, Furiosa breathes a sigh of relief that Angharad and the rest of the girls managed to take care of him before the War Boys brought him here. 

She watches Love’s face and sees that he does not even flinch at Joe’s thrusts. It makes her smile. He is a wild thing, strong and unbreakable. Gear slaps her shoulder because he sees only her grin, not what’s behind it. 

Joe comes fast, rabbiting and panting into his breathing machine. He comes with a roar and if Love’s face would react, it would be now but he just closes his eyes and goes blank. Furiosa knows it is not her place to feel pride but she does nonetheless.

Joe pulls out, his grotesque penis hanging lose, covered in semen. He takes the microphone back from Corpus and declares. “For my War Boys, the rarest of the rare: an Omega man. In my generosity I share with you my property.”

He grips Rictus shoulder and shoves him forward. Furiosa watches as Rictus touches Love’s back, fingers gentle, tracing the lines of his shoulder blades, his muscles, the divots above his buttocks with careful touches. “Your wife is so pretty, Dad,” he whispers.

“Take him, son. Make me proud.”

Rictus takes himself in hand and slides inside Love slowly. Everything he does is slow. His hands don’t stop tracing over Love’s back as he rolls his hips. He even bends down to press kisses over the tattooed skin. “So pretty. So shiny. So chrome,” he says again and again. 

Between his legs, she can see that Love is hard and his jaw ticks. This is worse for him than Joe. She can tell from the way his throat bobs. Joe is too focused on his son to notice but she does. She wants to help wants to say something but she is surrounded by War Boys with hands down their pants and mouths open and panting. All she can do is stare at him and hope he’ll meet her gaze.

He does and he looks devastated. His eyes are glazing with pleasure as each of Rictus’ careful thrust hits that spot she found inside him. He looks sick and high and hateful. He doesn’t say anything but he drops his head, as if he can’t bear to look at her any more.

“Just like that, son.” Joe declares on a rasping exhale. “Make him come when you do. Omega bitches were built for pleasure, yours and theirs. Break him with bliss.”

Love’s eyes go wide and it’s clear he wasn’t expecting this. He was expecting violence. He was expecting rough handling. The idea that they’re going to use gentleness sends a visible panic racing across his features and he casts his eyes to her. She rubs her lips slowly, reminding him that she will give him what he asked for and he blinks at her in a way that is much of a confirmation as he can give as Rictus slams home and Love shudders with pleasure, shooting thick and white onto the dirt beneath his knees.

Rictus kisses the back of Love’s neck as he pulls out. Then he redressed and moved stand beside his father and brother. 

“Show him, my War Boys, what pleasures submission to me can bring.”

They swarm him and he disappears beneath them. Furiosa crowds in too so she can keep an eye on him. One War Boy is already balls deep, though his balls are deformed with cancer, and another is choking Love on his cock. It’s rough and painful and Love actually starts to relax until Joe calls, “No no! Gently! You’ll never pleasure him that way.”

Both men slow and other hands join on in, petting his back, his sides, his stomach. Finally one of the War Boys realizes that an Omega man is still a man and wraps a fist around Love’s cock. Love chokes on his tongue but keeps his teeth locked together.

One after another, the War Boys come in Love’s ass and mouth until it spills over his lips and out of his hole. They don’t stop working his cock. She loses count of the times they force orgasms out of him. He eventually breaks and starts sobbing with it, his limbs shaking and spasming with sensation overload.

Furiosa loses track of time as they use him. Hours must pass She doesn’t watch the sun, keeping her eyes locked on Love, ready to do anything she can, but still apart from the orgy on the stone floor. It’s her place as Imperator, she can go when she choses. She told Ace that she choses last. So she settles by Love’s head, her knees under his chin and works to keep the drool and come off his chin.

He leans into her touch every time she cleans him up. Joe looks at her suspiciously but when the last War Boy is done with his mouth, she shucks her pants and hooks her thighs over his shoulders. She reaches down and wipes his mouth clean again. She threads her fingers through his hair, says “Use your mouth, Omega,” before pulling his face between her legs. Joe’s bloodshot eyes sparkle at the sight. 

Love’s eyes crinkle with something akin to a smile he buries himself up to his nose in her pussy. He bumps against her every time the War Boy inside him fucks in. She hates that she likes it. Not as much as she likes the way his tongue strokes up and down her lips before pushing in, the way he sucks on her clit gently, just enough to get her body humming but not enough to make her hard or form a knot. 

The last War Boy reaches orgasm, shoving in hard and Love panting, crying. She can feel his tears on her inner thighs. It hurts him even as it pulls enjoyment from him. He lets it out by pushing his tongue in and in and in. It pushes Furiosa over the edge, shouting wordlessly. Her good hand is digging into Love’s shoulder, her prosthetic braced behind her, her heels in his shoulder blades. He doesn’t stop licking and she comes again, quiet this time, shaking and soaking his face. 

When she drops her legs she doesn’t clean his mouth. He bites his lip before sucking it into his mouth. It’s split so he could just be sucking on the sore spot but he’s not. He’s tasting her again. 

“Beautiful Michael,” Joe sighs though his eyes rake over Furiosa’s exposed sex even as she wriggles back into her pants. She knows her birth defect is all that saved her from those hands. 

To his troops he orders, “Take him back to the Vault. Walk him back just like this, through the halls where all can see his form. My Imperator, lead them.”

Furiosa runs her thumb over his lip. She brings it back, sucks the wet digit into her mouth, keeping her eyes on Love’s, and nods. Only Love knows that she isn’t nodding at Joe’s command.


	7. Have a seat.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone reacts to Max's pregnancy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Max is pregnant! Now the fun begins.

Max didn’t think he would want contact after everything Immortan Joe has done and had done to him. But he does. He wants Angharad’s long limbs wrapped around him and Cheedo’s delicate hands on his ankles and Toast’s legs thrown casually over his own and the Dag’s hip pressed against his shoulder, his head in Capable’s lap. He takes solace in their nearness in a way they have clearly perfected. 

“Feel,” Angharad tells him one sunny morning seventy-three days after his breeding. She takes his hand, finally unshackled, and places it on her belly. Beneath his hand, her baby kicks against him. 

“Oh.”

“Where there’s life, there’s hope, Love,” she says. “You have to remember that.” She takes his hand back and puts it on his own stomach. “Soon it’ll be yours.”

“It’s alright if you’re not happy about that,” the Dag says, squeezing his shoulder. Immortan Joe has taken to fucking her every night. He doesn’t know how the old man manages her and one of the others each day. 

She could be pregnant now and not know it. She sighs and slides down the thin bed, draping herself over Toast to put her head on Max’s shoulder. She is heavy and warm, a welcome weight that anchors him from the now. 

When the girls are touching him, he doesn’t have flashbacks. He doesn’t see the feral child, he doesn’t see the men and women he failed, he doesn’t taste semen on his tongue. He is in the now with his fellow Wives and he is Love. It is safe, or as safe as anything can be in this mad world.

“Furiosa’s coming today.” Capable says. “It’s been three days.”

“Unless something went wrong on the Bullet Town run,” Toast chimes in, ever the realist.

“She’ll be here,” Cheedo says. “She’ll want to see you Love.”

The girls giggle but Angharad does not. She just meets his gaze questioning. He nods jerkily. Yes, he wants to see her too. 

When Furiosa is here, they talk, which is a miracle all by itself. He hasn’t talked to anyone about much of anything since the Thunderdome.

He tells her about Sprog. He tells her about how he was heavy in Max’s arms despite being so light. He tells her about his pale hair and pale eyes and sweet smile. He tells her about his mean, accidental, right hook.

She tells him about her youth in the green place. She tells him about her Omega-mother Mary Jo Bassa and the Alpha-mother she was named for, who died defending her mate when a raiding party tried to take the Green Place. The raiding party were destroyed but so was the Bassa Alpha.

She tells him how Joe took the Citadel. Even Max has to admit it’s an epic tale, involving a damn monitor lizard of all things. The place was like Masada of the old world and Joe managed to get it. That’s where the immortal part of Immortan comes from - a battle he couldn’t have won but did, survival that shouldn’t have happened but did. Add in the only water for a thousand miles and a tyrannical dogma and you’ve got yourself a godking. It makes sense but that doesn’t make it better. 

She’s no defense against the things that are changing. One of the biggest alterations to Vault life is that Rictus began coming to him once his pregnancy was confirmed. 

Only ten weeks and already it’s starting to show, though just a barely. It means the litter will most likely be large, at least three maybe more he remembers from his first pregnancy, when there were still specialists you could see who could educate you about things like that. His doctor had been surprised he and Jessie were having a single because usually Omegas only had singles with Betas. An Alpha and Omega couple almost always produced multiples and a strong Alpha like Furiosa, well, here he was wasn’t he?

Rictus brings him ripe fruit from the grow-houses. He stings together flat, red rocks together into chunky necklaces colored black and grey with engine grease that do not fit around Max’s neck and are too big for his wrists but gifts them to Max anyway. He sits at Max’s feet but does not touch, just looks up at him with adoring eyes that make Max uneasy as he tells Max of conquests made on Fury Road. He does not come every day but like Furiosa, he comes often. 

Max is pregnant. So, like Angharad, he doesn’t wear a fanged chastity belt locked around his waist. His ankle is still chained to the wall and Rictus is twice his size. He is the son of Immortan Joe. He could take what he wanted, although Max could probably hold his own in a fair fight, but he never makes a move.

“He’s sweet on you,” Capable had told him after Rictus’ most recent visit when Max threw the latest gift at the wall, a crown of greenery plucked from the top of the farthest rock tower if Rictus was to be believed. “Really sweet. He wants to win you over. Joe tried it with Angharad. It didn’t work but he tried before he gave up and forced her again.”

“You were here before Angharad?”

“Mhm. Me and Toast both. My son was stillborn, hers was a girl. Healthy but a girl.” She looks down at her own belly and wraps her arms around it. “We don’t know what he did with her after he took her away.”

Probably killed her, Max thinks but he doesn’t say it. No doubt they already thought of that. 

“What was her name?”

“We called her Cloud the Sweet until Joe took her. Toast spent most of her pregnancy looking up at the sky. She said the clouds calmed her stomach. 

“There were four other women here before you arrived. One died in childbirth. Then Angharad came. Then the Dag. One’s third son was a mutant and the other two women had stillborn girls as their thirds. They’re all milk mothers now. Then Cheedo. Then you.” She looks at him. “He takes us all on the first night so he can put the belts on us right away.” She tugs on her chastity belt. “Except you. He needed you in heat. Everyone else I’ve ever met is a Beta. Well, besides Furiosa but I didn’t know she was an Alpha until…” Capable trailed off. 

She hadn’t known until Furiosa fucked him. She couldn’t smell Alpha pheromones the way an Omega could.

“Most of us died out when the world ended,” Max had said to her. “I thought Jessie, Sprog and I were the last.”

But they weren’t. Every day when Joe comes to fuck the other Wives, all but Angharad who he doesn’t dare touch for fear of her pregnancy, he coos over Max. Primary on Joe’s mind is reminding him that he is an Omega. It’s the first time in his life that the fact has ever bothered Max because Joe makes it sound like a dirty word and he doesn’t want to hear anything come out of that rasping mouth. 

“Beautiful,” Joe calls him the same way he calls Angharad “Splendid”. Like they are things to be described, not people to be named. “Look at your Omega belly. So plump this early?” He inhales and exhales through his wheezing machine before he continues. “It means that you will give me many sons, doesn’t it. So strong and fertile, Beautiful.” 

He nuzzles his mask against Max’s stomach and Max wants to scream _“Get away from my pups. They’re not yours. Don’t touch them. Don’t touch me.”_

Father and son make him long for Furiosa’s touch. Her Alpha scent and touch sooth the roiling hormones boiling his body already. They ease the exhaustion, calm the budding morning sickness.

She never talks at him, only to him. This time, when she arrives, she stops to talk to each of the Wives as they come to her. She puts her hand on their arm or shoulder or hip. Then she comes to him and stands before him, waiting. 

“Have a seat,” he offers.

She sits beside him and he holds his hand palm out to her, wrist extend and jutting up, scent glands up. She presses her lips to his pulse point, to get his Omega taste. Then she laces their fingers together. He likes it. It’s warm and comforting. He doesn’t cling but he could. She would be strong enough to hold him.


	8. Whatever you want.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max has cravings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun with this chapter. I hope you like it too. I'd love to hear what you think.
> 
> Give some love to the amazing [fan art](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4126425) in this chapter by following the link.

Love is eighty days pregnant when the vomiting starts. Angharad and her fellow Wives take turns stroking his hair and putting cool clothes on his neck as he heaves his guts up into buckets and basins. Angharad has never been so grateful to be heavily pregnant as she is when she thinks of how she is past morning sickness. Repulsed former milk mothers carry out the waist waddling away with wrinkled faces and outstretched arms. 

Angharad has varicose veins on her thighs. Her ankles are swollen and her belly is so big she can rest a cup on it and it won’t fall off when she’s sitting up straight. Her son kicks every few minutes and she finds herself smiling more than she ever thought she would again when she was dragged by her hair into the Vault. 

“I miss meat,” Love says, pacing back and forth beside his bed. He wipes at his mouth. “I miss bloody, juicy meat. I could strangle someone for some rare damn meat. ”

“Tell Furiosa,” says Cheedo.

“Tell Rictus,” says the Dag.

“Tell Joe,” Toast tells him. Love’s eyes go wide at that. Angharad watches as she stops him mid-pace by catching his hand. He stares down at her. “Ask Joe for what you crave. He’ll get you what you need for _his_ baby.” She rolls her eyes and folds her arms over her chest. “I once got actual chocolate. It was forty years old but still. Chocolate.”

Love’s eyes go huge. “Good God.” 

Angharad doesn’t know what chocolate is. She chews on her thumbnail and watches them. 

“I know. If all you want is meat, no problem.”

Love spits on the ground. “Death first.”

Toast just shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

In the end, its Rictus who brings him meat. Capable must have said something. He sits at Love’s feet with a hubcap full of steaming meat so rare it’s red as Capable’s hair. “You should eat,” he says softly, holding the chrome plate out to Love. “I heard…this is what you want right? You wanted meat?”

“Tell me this isn’t human.” Love says and Angharad has to work not to flinch. She was down among the Wretched before Joe noticed her. She’s eaten her fair share of human flesh. She still dreams of the rich taste sometimes. 

“Goat,” Rictus says with a shy smile. “Don’t tell Dad.”

“There are goats here?” Love asks.

“There are goats here?” echoes Toast.

“On the top of the rocks, there’s goats.” He leans in and whispers, “Only Dad gets the milk. We only have two billies the rest are nannies.” Angharad watches him adjust the hubcap to the other hand.

Love doesn’t say anything. He picks up a piece of meat. 

Rictus beams at him. His teeth are crooked but they are all in tact. He could have been a real person had he grown up under the care of anyone else but Joe, Angharad thinks. She looks at him and is reminded of why her son needs to get to the Green Place.

“I cooked it on an engine and cut it with my own knives,” he tells Love with pride. “I can bring you the hide if you want. I just need time to clean it.”

“No,” he says then pops the piece of goat in his mouth. “It’s good.”

“I couldn’t get to the salt.”

He swallows and grabs another piece. He chews and nods. “Mm. ’S fine.”

Rictus inhales deep through his nose, sucking in oxygen through his cannula. “Good. I’m glad”

Love reaches out and brushes Rictus’ hand as he takes the makeshift plate. It’s the first time he’s ever touched Rictus voluntarily, Angharad knows from the look in Love’s eyes and the way Rictus shivers in pleasure. 

“Thank you, Rictus.”

“Anything you need, Michael. Just tell me and it’s yours. Anything.” He doesn’t wait for Love to finish eating before he leaves, walking backwards and tripping over his own feet on the way out.

What surprises Angharad is that Love saves some of his goat for Furiosa. He gives it to her much the same way that Rictus gave it to him, only he is brusque and off hand, shoving it at her. “It’s goat.” He says dropping it in her lap after she sits down beside him. Before Furiosa can protest he says, “If you’re going to get us out of this place you need to eat right.”

So she eats it with careful bites and tries not to look like she enjoys it too much. She’s terrible at hiding what she feels around Love, even if its just the simple pleasure of food. He touches her lips with his finger tips and she sucks it into her mouth.

Angharad feels herself get wet as she watches Furiosa twirl her tongue around his index finger. She waves a hand at her sisters for silence, for privacy as Love fucks Furiosa’s mouth gently with his hand before pulling free. Angharad stays, ever their witness.

“Tell me what you want,” Furiosa orders with shiny red lips. 

Love shivers. “Your knot in my mouth,” he whispers. “Pregnancy cravings. Your smell.” He leans in and licks her neck. “Your taste.” He nips her neck. “Alpha.”

“Omega,” she agrees, her voice equally soft. “Whatever you want.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.” She shrugs and begins unwrapping the bindings that hold her metal arm in place but Love stops her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Leave it.”

“Ok.”

She lets him take off her clothes. He bares her breasts and removes her pants and covers her body with his mouth. Furiosa gasps and arches as he sucks her nipples in between his teeth before soothing them with long licks. She hums as he kisses down her belly.

She’s never seen an Alpha woman hard before. Her clit is extended like a man’s cock, pink and thick and lovely. Love licks it with long measured strokes. Then he sinks down to his knees on the floor and takes her in his mouth. She’s big and he chokes but he seems to like it, if the way his hands slip between his legs is any indication. 

Angharad wishes to do the same. She does not. It would be an invasion of the act they are sharing.

Nevertheless, they are beautiful, together, rawly sexual in the way Furiosa’s metal hand grips his shoulder for purchase, her flesh hand cupping his face and stroking over his cheek again and again. When she knots, they both cry out. Love goes up on his thighs, bucking into his hand and swallowing, swallowing, swallowing. Her knot is a swollen mass of flesh that stretches his lips white and muffles his noises when he groans around it.

He pants through his nose for long minutes as she empties herself in him. His eyes drift shut and his shoulders go slack. When she pulls out, he rests his head on her thigh. He hums, content for the first time since she’s met him as Furiosa pets his hair.

“Thank you,” he mumbles against her skin. Furiosa bends in half so that she can whisper directly into his ear, something not even Angharad can hear. From where she is, all she can do is look at Love’s face. His cheeks are flushed. His lips are red. His eyes are drowsy and sated. He is satisfied.

Angharad wonders what satisfaction feels like. She wonders if she’ll ever know. If she does not, being witness to his will be enough.


	9. She will burn down the world if thats what it takes to get her people home.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa and the Wives escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was SUPER DIFFICULT. I seriously hope it came out okay, omg.
> 
> On another note, the updates may be coming slower as I just began summer classes. I apologize in advance for any delays.

Immortan Joe gifts her with command of the war rig ninety-one days after her children are conceived. Love can still move well, thank the Mothers. 

Angharad is already waddling. If she has to wait too much longer, Love will be in the same straights. She needs to get them out of here before it’s too hard for them to move. 

All she needs now is an excuse. Anything will do. She prays to the Mothers who have gone before every minute of every hour of every day until finally, word comes down about a run to Gastown. 

It could be more perfect but Nothing grows in Gastown. That means the convoy will be water and produce and mother’s milk. It will be sustenance for a long time if they don’t waste it. 

All they have to do is make it out. And they will make it out. Between Miss Giddy and the Wives, they’re strong enough to get away. 

“We need the white dust,” Angharad says, her face determined. “We’re leaving a message when we go.”

“Fuck the message,” Max says on day ninety-nine. He’s got his legs draped across her lap so she can massage his swollen ankles as best she can around the manacle. “Make sure you’ve got the keys to these chains,” he shakes his foot in her hand. “And that I’ve got a gun.”

“You know how to shoot?”

“Mm.” 

Furiosa is impressed. She doesn’t know why. He’s not a soft man, despite the way pregnancy is smoothing his rough edges. He was a road warrior but she thinks he was probably a good one. He has that look about him. 

“The rig will have guns. Once we get out of range, I’ll make sure you have one.”

“Then I want a fucking knife in my hand.”

“Now that I can do.” Her grin is vicious. She can feel the animal in her bear its fangs. He isn’t her mate in a proper sense but he is carrying her pups and that’s close enough.

Knives are easy to make. Break a piece of chrome off a car, sharpen it on a rock, wrap it in leather and bam. Knife. It takes her one day to get Love a small but lethal weapon. He holds it in his hand and makes approving grunt.

“Just stab him,” the Dag says, desperate. “Next time Joe comes in, just stab him in his fat throat.”

“And bring Rictus and all the War Boys down on you?” Furiosa argues. She shakes her head. “No. This is our best chance. If we’re going to get out, we get out my way.”

“We’re going to the Green Place,” Angharad reminds them. “We’re not things and we’re going to the Green Place. We have to be patient.”

“Fuck your patience,” the Dag sobs. 

Furiosa can’t blame her. Joe took her chastity belt the day before, when the Organic Mechanic confirmed her pregnancy. It’s all the more reason to move and move fast. 

“The Gastown run is in three days. Be prepared.”

“We will,” Angharad says. “Just get us the white powder and get us out. We’re ready.”

When the day comes, Furiosa gives Miss Giddy a shotgun. Miss Giddy is thrilled. She’s wanted to shoot Joe in the face for twenty years. She’s old enough not to care what happens to her. 

Furiosa admires her that she has nothing to lose. She was like that once. After her mother died, all she had was survival. Now she she has a chance at a family again. She won’t lose them. She will not. 

Her breath catches when she comes to get them from the Vault and finds We Are Not Things written in capital letters over the beds. Her hand shakes a little as she unshackles Love. He throws the chain at the wall, hard. “Scag,” he spits then looks down at his feet. “You didn’t get me any shoes did you?”

“You shouldn’t need them.”

“The hell I won’t.”

“Just hurry up” she orders with absolutely no mercy. He isn’t going to be fighting. None of them are but her. They’re just going to run. “You need to get in the hold while no one’s there.”

The six of them follow her through tunnels of the Citadel to the garage. They’ll only be stationary for about an hour before they roll out for preparation if her guess is right. She has to be right. 

She’s never been so afraid as she is under the scrutiny of the War Boys and the Wretched as they hook the pod to the war rig. Her secret is burning in her chest. Joe gives his speech and lets the water pour in a hateful tease. Through it all, Furiosa lets out deep even breaths and tries not to flinch. 

When Immortan Joe finishes his preaching, they are sent off and then they are moving. She is tearing the war rig down Fury Road with the most precious cargo on earth in the hold. She gets far before Joe finds out, farther than she thought she would. 

She knows that the men with her are going to die if she can’t get a lead. She finds it hard to care. At least a third of these War Boys raped Love and gloried in the violence of it. Even Ace, a man she once thought of as a peer if not a friend, is just more collateral damage as far as she’s concerned now. 

Her fingers grip the wheel tightly. The knife in the gearshift comforts her. So do the guns in the cab. She could kill Ace right now. She will. She will burn down the world if thats what it takes to get her people home. 

Drums sound in her ears and her breath catches in her chest. Immortan Joe is coming. She is heading into the waste but as the screaming sound of Coma’s guitar reaches her ears she knows that they are going fast enough that it may not be enough. 

Still, she drives. She drives and drives straight into a spectacular dust storm sent to her as a gift from the Mothers. It will save them all.


	10. All seven of them climb in cab.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to watch the movie again (boo hoo I know) twice to get this right. Lines that are direct pulls from the script obviously do not belong to me. Let me know what you think. Hope you like it.

Taking the time to rinse off and cut off the chastity belts is unbelievably stupid, if anyone were to ask Max, not that they did. Angharad insists. They are not things. They are free now, and since Furiosa has to beat the dust out of the engines, the girls take time to use the bolt cutters to free and clean themselves.

Max doesn’t need to be clean, and he doesn’t need to cut off a chastity bent so he heads over to Furiosa and holds out a hand. She gives him the wrench and says “Get the other side.”

He takes the out months of anger hammering on the engine. It’s Joe’s face under his wrench. It’s Joe’s heavy stomach and misshapen cock. It was his wheezing breathing machine and fuck, fuck, fuck that fucking scaly scag. 

He bangs on the metal until he hears the Dag scream. Then he runs around the side of the war rig, and sees a War Boy attached to a long chain holding his family at gun point. His brain stutters over the thought “family” but it doesn’t slow his feet down.

He slams into the War Boy at full speed, knocking the gun from his hand and pinning him to the ground. Furiosa grabs it from the sand. She shoves it in the boy’s face and pulls the trigger. The bullet explodes in the chamber in a sad puff and she drops it and hits him with her good hand.

With a shocking agility, the War Boy manages to wriggle out from beneath Max and roll away. He scrambles to his feet and whips Furiosa with the chain, hitting her across the face. She’s bleeding from the cheekbone. Anger boils in Max, but he can’t tell if it’s true fury or his hormones roiling in the heat. 

“You’re going back,” the boy says. “You’re all going back. You can’t take his sons away like that!”

Angharad darts forward and grabs his chain. She yanks on the chain, and seconds later the other Wives are pulling too. They pull him down, and Furiosa is on his shoulders. 

Max grabs for the gun. It’s a waste of a firearm but it will make a good bludgeon. He lifts it and jerks his chin at Furiosa. She backs away so that he can bring the butt of the gun down on the boy’s temple. His shadowed eyes slam shut as he loses consciousness. 

“Bind his hands.” Max grunts, and Angharad rushes to them with the length of chain. They wrap them around his wrists and leave him there in the yellow sand to rot but not before Max takes his boots. He’s not going to be barefoot and pregnant one minute more. The leather slides over his ankles and he feels like a man again.

All seven of them climb in cab. Max pulls out his ugly knife and looks at it in the dull light of undiluted sunlight. Without a word, Furiosa lifts the bone of the gearshift just enough so that he can see the dagger concealed there. He meets her eyes and nods then sets about to collect the guns from around the cabin. He throws them in a bag that sits on the floor of the passenger side. They’ll need them all in one place when Immortan Joe catches up with them as he inevitably will. 

“Have you thought of names?” Capable asks, breaking the silence they’ve been driving in for a few hours. “For your babies.”

“No,” Max says.

“I like Freedom,” Angharad says. “For a boy or a girl.”

“I like it,” Cheedo says. “It fits.”

“It does,” agrees the Dag. “It’s beautiful.”

“Don’t say that word,” Max snaps. All he can hear is Joe’s voice when she says it even though he knows she doesn’t mean it. The Dag would never mean that, but still. They’re not far enough away for his skin to stop crawling. 

“Sorry, Love,” She mumbles. “I still like it though. It’s nice.”

Silence settles back over the cab as they approach the canyons. The rumble of their pursuers is heavy in the air. Capable and Angharad look out with their binoculars and spy glass and give the report. Battle rigs, pursuit vehicles, polecats and the bloody People Eater are all on their tails from the South. 

To Max, it changes nothing. The fuel pod is dragging behind them, slowing their escape. That’s what matters. Furiosa grabs his wrist when he says he’ll go but he shakes her off. “I’ll go,” he says again and opens the door to the cab. There’s something exhilarating about climbing on top of the rig, putting things back together that should be broken. 

By the time he gets back to the cab, chaos has broken out. The War Boy has gotten into the rig some how. Everyone is shouting.

“He’s just a kid at the end of his half-life,” Angharad is shouting.

“No, I live, I die, I live again!”

“Tie him up.”

“Throw him out.”

“Chuck him out.”

The girls seem to have him under control which is good because there’s more trouble coming. “We’ve got more friends,” he says through the window, pointing his gun out the driver side. Furiosa turns and goes pale.

“Bullet Farmer. They’re coming from the Bullet Farm.”

The War Boy pops his head in and grins. “It’s over you can’t defy him.”

Furiosa spits in his face and he spits back like a pair of three year olds. Max climbs back in the window was the other Wives shout at the War Boy. Everything they say is true. Everything they tell him is right, but the boy is so brainwashed he won’t hear it. He is awaited, he is going to live again, he is getting his ass throned from the backseat as Angharad demands who killed the world. 

All in all, its entertaining stuff Max is glad he missed. He’d have just put a bullet in the kid’s brain and been done with it. 

“I made a deal up ahead, safe passage,” Furiosa tells them as they enter the mouth of the canyon. “I don’t know if it’s still any good. Get back in the hold. Keep the hatch open.” She stops Max before he can climb in after Angharad. “I need you to stay here. I may need you to drive the rig.”

“All right.”

“Whatever you do you can’t be seen. I’m supposed to be alone. That was the deal. Make sure you can see me when you get down there.”

He goes and keeps his eyes above the edge of the hatch. She doesn’t look back to see if he’s listening. “There’s a kill switch. One. One, two. One. Red. Black. Go. You have it?”

“Mm.”

“Good. When I call your name, you drive. Clear.”

“Mm.” Max sinks into the hatch with Angharad practically in his lap. She’s beside him when her pregnancy starts giving her pain. He watches her cover her mouth with her hands but its not enough to silence her. 

Turns out it doesn’t matter because seconds later he hears Furiosa scream “Love!” at the top of her lungs. He’s scrambling into the driver’s seat, deactivating the kill switch and tearing out. He can’t believe how relieved he feels when Furiosa reappears in the cab beside him. He reaches out and she takes his hand for a brief squeeze before she dives into the bag for their weapons. 

Then they lose Angharad and the whole world slows down. Stops. Max didn’t think he had a heart left to break but there it goes, shattering again.

“Stop,” Capable demands, slamming her hand on his shoulder. “Turn the rig around. Go back for her.”

“No.”

“Tell him to turn the rig around,” Capable sobs.

“Did you see it?” Furiosa asks gently because she knows that no matter what she was to the other Wives, she was even more to him. 

He shakes his head because all he saw was her fall and Joe crash. She could still be breathing. She could be hurt but alive. What he knows though, is if they go back now, the rest of the Wives will go back in the Vault and Furiosa will die slowly and very very painfully. That can’t happen.

“She would want us to keep going.” He says simply, a statement of a fact he also knows to be true.

“She could still be alive!” Cheedo shouts.

“Could be,” he agrees, cold, dead inside. “Probably isn’t. Doesn’t matter. We lose one, we go on. She agreed.” Because she had, in the dark, the night before, when he’d warned her that they might die, that they wouldn’t make it, that even if they did one or more of they could be taken back. 

“Then the rest of us continue,” Angharad had said. “We’re going to the Green Place.” 

And they are. They’re going to the fucking Green Place for her if for no other reason. 

His answer is enough for Furiosa. She sits back in her chair and nods. “We keep going.”

They drive on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is Angharad's point of view.


	11. You can take me home.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angharad has a conversation with Rictus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a blast writing this chapter. I hope you like it. Lemme know what you think <3

Angharad comes awake with a whimper to the sight of Immortan Joe’s face looming over her. He is hideous and if she could she would scream. It stead she moans a litany of “No, no, no, no.”

“Hush, Splendid, the child is fine. Just breathe.” Joe declares as he swims in her vision. Of course, its all about the baby. She should have known. She is thing to him, a little incubator he happens to find pleasing. “My child still lives in your belly.”

But oh, it hurts. She hurts and the baby isn’t moving. She doesn’t believe him. 

“Please,” she whimpers. She needs to get out of here. She needs to get away. 

“Of course I forgive you Splendid.” He smoothes her hair back. “She tricked you. You didn’t know better.” 

She doesn’t have the energy to spit in his face. She turns her head and sees Miss Giddy. She’s holding her hand, her eyes sad. This is Angharad’s worst nightmare.

“You’ll recover,” Miss Giddy says. It’s dark out. Or maybe its her vision as she swims back out of consciousness. 

She is not alone with Rictus but he is the one at her side when she awakens again. He is holding her hand the way Miss Giddy was and he looks so awkward. He looks sad too.

“You miss Love,” she whispers, so soft that Joe cannot hear her outside the cab.

“Who?”

“Michael.” She corrects herself. He doesn’t know him like she does. She only knows the man he’s been promised. “You miss him, don’t you.” 

It’s not a question. She can see the ache in his eyes. He is in love, and he is doomed. Perhaps he even knows it. 

“He’s alright. He’s alive. Strong.”

“Good.” Rictus says, his huge shoulders sagging in relief. “That’s good.”

“I know you’ve been trying,” she rasps out, “To win him over. You’ve been doing so well Rictus. Are you really going to throw all of it away for _him_?”

“He’s my father.” 

Rictus says the words like they are everything. Angharad knows with sinking hope that are to him. But now convincing him that Joe isn’t the end all, be all may be her family’s only chance. If she can change his mind then she can die here or go back to being a slave with a clear heart, knowing she’s helped her family escape. 

“And Michael is going to be your wife. He’s going to bear your sons. You love him.”

Rictus drops his head down until his forehead touches hers. “I do.” It is so clearly a secret, something he can’t let his father know and despite the circumstances, despite the man, Angharad feels honored to be trusted so. 

She reaches up with her other hand and caresses his cheek. It’s mostly covered with the plastic harness that holds his jaw in place but he leans into it. “He knows. He does. Wasn’t he starting to respond? Didn’t he hold your hand? Touch your face like this?”

Rictus nods against her. The day before they had left, Love had made this very gesture, climbed to the ground where Rictus sat and pressed their foreheads together. He’d whispered his thanks and kissed his cheek. Rictus had looked like he would cry. 

“Do you think he will ever love you if you drag him back against his will? Do you think he will ever kiss you again?”

“I don’t know,” Rictus says haplessly.

“He won’t. I promise you he won’t. I know him and he will never willingly touch you again.”

“I will make him.” Rictus declares.

“Just like your father made him?” she asks. “Like your father makes me?”

“You don’t obey.”

“Obedience isn’t love Rictus.Obedience isn’t kindness. I’ve never kissed your father. I never will. Is that what you want from a wife?”

Rictus closes his eyes. “I know he hurt Michael.”

“Yes he did.”

“I know he hurts you.”

“But you don’t stop it.”

“He is the one who grabs the sun,” he whispers. “He is the redeemer. I am the Prince of the Wasteland, Splendid.”

“And Michael is the man you’ve spent almost one hundred days learning, loving. Do you really want to treat him the way your father treats me? Locked away, chained up, raped? By you? That’s not love.”

“You called him Love.”

Angharad looks away. “He lets me.”

“I want him to let me call him that.”

“He never will this way, I promise you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know him.”

Rictus groans and pulls away. “He’s my father.”

“I know. But it might be time for you to grow up.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You’re the Prince of the Wasteland, Rictus. You can do anything you want.” She squeezes his hand weakly. She is so tired. “You can take me home.”

“Home is the Citadel.”

“No. They are my home.”

“I don’t understand,” Rictus confesses. “Splendid, please.”

“I love them. Do you understand? Wherever they are, that’s where I’m meant to be.”

“I think so. I think,” She watches him look away then back into her eyes. “I think he might be my home.”

“Then stop this. Stop it before it’s too late to ever go home again.”

Rictus grunts but Angharad doesn’t know if it’s a yes or a no. She’s fading out of consciousness again. 

When she pries her eyes open again, Rictus is gone. The Organic Mechanic is crouched over her instead, telling her to keep her feet up, that he can hear the baby move and that if she stays still he won’t have to do an emergency C-section.

So Angharad lays still and prays to whoever may be listening. She prays that Furiosa and the rest of the wives will get away clean. She prays that her son will live. She prays that Rictus didn’t just listen but that he truly heard her. She prays for help, any help, but help. Most of all, she prays for the strength to hang on to hope.


	12. If you can’t fix what’s broken, you’ll go insane.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They make their way across the wasteland to the Vuvalini.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate chapter you guys. It's almost over. :D Hope you're enjoying the ride. As always, I'd love to know what you think. 
> 
> All dialogue from the movie is, of course, not mine.

Furiosa feels like things are spiraling out of control. The same damn War Boy who tried to kill her is driving her rig and now Love is going to go off and fight the Bullet Farmer alone? Is she the only one who thinks this is crazy? She can’t be can she?

“You can’t do this. They’ll mow you down. Our pups-“

“My pups,” Love corrects. “Mine. And if we die out here…” He shrugs as if to say _“it could be worse”_.

And she’s seen what he can do. He’s good, maybe better than she is. If anyone can do this, it’s him. But none of them should be doing this. “Hey. What if you’re not back by the time the engines have cooled down?”

He looks at her likes she’s stupid. “Well you keep moving.”

“Love, that’s not-“

“You. Keep. Moving.”

She wants to kiss him goodbye. She wants to hold his face in her palms and tell him to come back to her. She doesn’t say any of it because he isn’t hers. Furiosa realizes as she watches him walk away that even if he stays by her side for the rest of her life that he never fully will be. 

Waiting is hell. She feels like she’s holding her breath until she sees an explosion in the distance. Then she feels like her breathing stops. It could be Love’s triumph or it could be the end of him and unless he comes back she’ll never know. She doesn’t exhale again until he walks into view, laden down with bullets and weapons and new wheel and shoes for the War Boy. That last one makes her heart catch. Despite himself, he will be a good mother, he already is one. 

The girls are concerned, they have every right to be but that isn’t his blood. Whatever he just did, it took down an entire pursuit vehicle on foot, with no back up and basically no weapons. That level of power is exhilarating in its destructive force. She could have him right now if she were a different kind of person, or he were. 

But they aren’t and so they simply continue on through the marsh to the desert. She drives. The rest of the the party sleeps. It’s good until Love comes awake with a choked scream. 

“It’s all right,” she says. “Get some sleep.”

“Listen,” Love replies, ignoring her as he’s wont to do, “About what I said.”

“For a man who doesn’t talk much you’ve said a lot of things lately.”

“About the babies.”

“Ah.”

“They’re yours too. I-“

“No, I get it. You’re their mother. Yours first, always.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

She smiles sadly at the empty expanse of dunes before her. “I know. Now you don’t have to.”

“I can’t watch anymore children die before my eyes,” he grits out. “Understand?”

“I think I do.” He told her about Sprog, about how he and his father Jessie were run down on the road, right in front of Love. There’s more though. More children who have passed before him, unsaved, ones he hasn’t told her about. She thinks that he means he’d rather the pups die in the womb than get attached and lose everything all over again. 

“So this Green Place,” he says, clearing his throat, “We close?”

They are. They are so close that the Vuvalini outpost is shining in the distance. Love clicks his tongue and shakes his head. 

“That’s bait.”

He’s right of course. He usually is. But it’s familiar bait. It’s bait that means _home_ and Furiosa doesn’t waste any time climb out of the rig and announcing herself. When she does, the Vuvalini emerge from the sands like avenging angels on motorcycles and seven thousand days of desperately clinging to hope feel validated in one precious moment.

“And the men?” they ask.

“They’re reliable. They helped us get here.”

“Is that one an Omega?” Asks Valkyrie, jerking her chin at Love. She turns and looks at Furiosa with eyes she remembers from her girlhood. “I didn’t think there were any Omega men left.”

“He’s one of the last.”

The Keeper of Seeds sniffs the air. “Pregnant.” She looks at Furiosa. She’s surprised. Love hasn’t even gotten out of the rig. But then an Alpha of her years has training and skills she can’t even imagine. “Yours?”

“His.”

“Good answer, girl.”

For a moment, the Wives and Vuvalini just explore each other. Love stays in the cab, watching. It’s better this way. She will take them to the Green Place together with her old tribe. 

Only no. The Green Place is gone. It will never come back. Everything was for nothing and her family is going to die out here.

Furiosa doesn’t remember falling to her knees in the sand. She doesn’t remember Toast and Valkyrie pulling her to her feet and back to what little the women have made of civilization. It’s not until nightfall, wrapped in Valkyrie’s robes, that she comes back to herself. 

The only way out is through. She believes this. The salt waste where the oceans once were could go on forever but there could be something on the other side. They have enough for one-hundred-and-sixty-days a person. “You’re more than welcome to come with us,” she offers Love. She doesn’t ask him, doesn’t beg him for the sake of the children they share. She knows that any chance of a yes would die if she did. 

“I’ll make my own way.” He tells her gruffly. 

She gives a stiff nod and tries not to let him see her heart break. Like this, she will never see her children born. She will never know their sex, never know their names. She will never know if they have his eyes or her nose. She will never know if they live or if they die and she tries to tell herself it’s better that way. 

She turns to go but before she can he says, “You know hope is a mistake. If you can’t fix what’s broken, you’ll go insane.”

She shrugs and keeps moving. She can’t let herself believe that. Not for him, not for her, not for the rest of them. Hope is all they have left. If they let it go, that’s where the true insanity will start and she cannot, she will not let that happen.


	13. That's my name.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They charge back through the canyon together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it folks, the last chapter of the main story. I have epilogues and side stories planned so if you're interested in this verse, subscribe to the series but this is the last chapter of this story in the Love in the Waste series. It's been a hell of a ride. Thanks for taking it with me. I love you all. 
> 
> Special thanks to Gina, Jen, Weirdlet, and Kigichi. They know why.
> 
> As always, I'd love to know what you think.

The idea to go back comes from a roiling in the pit of Max’s gut that he can’t pass off as indigestion. It’s his pups. They are strong and they want to live. Going forward isn’t the answer. There’s nothing but death in the salt. Going back? Well, Furiosa and Angharad wanted to go to the Green Place didn’t they?

He doesn’t realize he loves them until he’s on the bike, on the salt. Why else would he do it? Why else would he go after them? 

There’s always common decency of course. But he could sneak back on his own just as easily, bide his time, take Joe out alone. It would be easy. People underestimate him because he’s a alone. The people of the Citadel underestimate him more now that he’s a Wife. He could do it with his teeth in one quick bite, like a mating gone wrong. 

No, he wants them with him. He could live without them but he doesn’t want to. That’s what love feels like. It’s just been awhile since he felt this way. 

He knows his plan is a good one, crazy, but good. He’s always been skilled at this sort of thing, planning and strategizing. If he were older, he would’ve been part of the Oil Wars and the Water Wars and who knows, maybe he would’ve been where Joe is now. Instead, he’s on the outskirts of life as they know it, waiting for Furiosa to decide. 

She takes his hand and Nux is right. It feels like hope. 

Max thinks he’s ready when the pursuit vehicles approach but he’s still surprised. That’s his car. They took everything even his fucking car. And here he thought he couldn’t want to kill Joe more. 

It’s not until he falls that everything changes. Furiosa is stabbed and the ground is tearing past his face. He never thinks she’ll drop him but he isn’t sure he’ll make the jump to the People Eater’s car he actually lands. 

Taking out the People is relatively easy. Getting back to the rig is harder. He’s not the biggest fan of the pole’s they use but it gets him where he needs to be, or close enough to jump onto the rig. 

He watches Rictus pull Cheedo onto Joe’s car and runs. Rictus is leaning down, holding his hand out into the cab when Max lands a hard punch square in his jaw. Rictus doesn’t stumble but he does look up as Max pulls back to throw another. This one Rictus catches in his huge hand and holds, twisting until he has a grip on Max’s wrist. 

“Michael, wait!” He shouts. “Angharad and the baby are alive. She’s with Dad.”

“Fuck you!” Max says as he swings with the other arm. Rictus catches that arm too. He’s captive again and panicking. He can’t be held, not again. Never again. 

“Please,” Rictus begs. “I can help. Cheedo asked me to move her. I didn’t steal her.”

“Let me go,” Max roars yanking hard, falling backwards when Rictus does just that, releasing both his hands at once. 

“I can help,” he says again, palms out. It’s so alien Max’s brain can barely process it. “Let me help.”

“Why?”

Rictus looks at him with his broken soul in his eyes. “I love you.”

Max is stunned. He knew Rictus cared for him and despite himself, he had found himself caring back but to turn against his father for him? It was more than anything Max had ever expected. It makes his heart ache.

He can test it, right here, right now. If Rictus isn’t lying then maybe… maybe… 

There isn’t time for this. “Get me to Joe.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

Max doesn’t bother to lie. “Yes.”

Rictus closes his eyes. “Alright.” He holds out his hand. “Come with me Michael.”

It’s the greatest act of trust Max has ever extended, taking that meaty palm but Rictus doesn’t let him down. He lifts Max by the waist into Joe’s car with all the effort it would take Max to lift a wrench. Then he lets him go. 

“I’ll stop them, Michael” Rictus promises, jerking his braced chin at the War Boys assaulting the rig. He moves to climb back onto the rig and Max catches his wrist.

He doesn’t know what makes him do it but he reaches up to grip the back of the Rictus’ neck, pulls him down and kisses him. It’s sloppy and wet, all tongue and teeth, then Max shoves him away. 

“I’m Max,” he says. He squeezes the back of Rictus’ neck. “Go.”

Then he turns his back on Rictus. He climbs into Joe’s car to find Joe’s mutilated corpse and a bleedingFuriosa hanging from the the window. He pulls her in and the Wives and Vuvalini follow him in, Nux coming after them a moment later.

“What are you doing here?” Capable asks. She looks happy but sounds shell-shocked.

“Rictus,” Nux whispers. His eyes are blown wide. “He told me to go. He’s going to blow the tanker.”

Max’s gut twists and he tightens his grip on Furiosa. He watches the rig twist and fall, sees the tanker blow and thinks _not again_. He thought he was done with people dying for him. 

Max closes his eyes against a shock of pain and realizes he could have loved him back, given more time, a different world. Rictus was a good man in his way. It’s not everyone who could turn on a man like Joe, especially not when that man was their father. 

He drags his thoughts from the could have beens and lays Furiosa out beside the sleeping Angharad. Even without Rictus’ added bulk, it is crowded in here. 

Angharad seems blessedly stable but Furiosa is wheezing in every breath. She’s pumping air into her lungs and he cannot, cannot, let her die. She is not his mate but he loves her as best he can. He won’t lose anyone else today. Not one more death on his hands, he thinks as he stabs her in the side and she gasps in pain.

He dredges up a smile from somewhere deep. “Hey.”

“Home,” she whimpers. He pulls her into his arms, cradling her head in his palm, pressing his lips to her temple. “Get me home,” she sighs. Then she drifts away.

“No. No no no no no.” She is not dying in his arms. She can’t do that. They all need her. Max needs her.

“She’s exsanguinated,” says a Vuvalini whose name he doesn’t know, “Drained all her blood.”

“I have this,” Nux offers, holding out a needle and plastic tubing. “Kept it from my blood bag.” And bless that bald little fuck. He may have saved her life. 

Once he’s started the transfusion between himself and his Alpha, Max leans over her and presses his forehead to hers. Tears sting his eyes but he won’t let them fall. He offers her the gift of the dying, the same gift he gave Rictus even though he thinks, he hopes, she’ll live. “Max. My name is Max. That’s my name.”

Beside her, Angharard’s eyes flutter open. She gives him a weak grin and reaches out to touch his face. “Hello, Max.”

(Fin)


	14. Epilogue 1.1: We’ve come to surrender the Prince of the Wasteland to Imperator Furiosa and Max of the Citadel.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angharad walks with the Wretched and sees familiar faces return to the Citadel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This Epilogue contains polyamory.
> 
> Polyamory means to be in a romantic relationship with more than one person. In Max's case that is both Rictus and Furiosa. Don't like it, now is the time to bail.

They run the water for an hour once a day. It’s not an ideal world where everyone can have as much as they want but Furiosa told Angharad that until she had a real idea of how much water there really is beneath the Citadel, they couldn’t risk too much. She also told Angharad she wouldn’t have people dying of thirst either. This was the closest to a happy medium they’ve found in the week since Furiosa took the Citadel. It’s kept the Wretched under control and happy without causing chaos. 

Angharad has taken to walking among the Wretched. The walks are slow and she uses a tall metal pole that the War Pups put together for her as a walking stick. At least one of the other Wives always seem hell bent on accompanying her. She rarely fights it. 

She was low like they were. She lived in the dust and filth. She doesn’t ever want to forget. 

The walks take hours and the Organic Mechanic’s apprentice, Stitch, tells her that as long as she stays slow, it will be good for her pregnancy. So she skirts the edges of their territory one step at a time, this time with the Dag at her side. She had invited Max, which is a lovely name Angharad thinks, but he turned her down again. She won’t stop asking but she doubts his answer will change. He stays in the heart of the Citadel, where it is dark and wet and cool and he doesn’t have to talk to anyone about anything.

So it’s just the two of them among the Wretched when the gang of rag tag War Boys stumble into the Citadel from the east. They are leaning on each other, dehydrated and starving, pack of maybe two hundred. Angharad is not surprised at their return. She is shocked that they demand to see Max of all people.

“Furiosa rules here,” cries a woman who looked to be sixty. She could be much younger with the way the land abuses people but her words hold weight and the others around them murmur their agreement. “You can talk to her.”

“We have the Prince of the Wasteland and we’ll only surrender him to Max,” snarls the healthiest and oldest of the War Boys. He is older than Angharad, maybe thirty. He spoke with the same authority he must have once spoke the words of Immortan Joe.

“Rictus is alive?” The Dag asks, shocked. 

“Barely. Take us to Max, and we’ll surrender easy.”

“All right,” Angharad says, waving her metal staff in the direction of what was now home. “Come with us.” 

Rictus is being carried, his weight split between four War Boys on a stretcher that used to be the Doof Warrior’s bungee cords and tied together pants. It seems flimsy and ready to crack beneath his massive weight but it has taken them across the desert. All of them must be stronger than they appear. 

The Dag runs ahead. Angharad leads them through the crowd that parts before her until they arrive at the lift. It is lowered and waiting. The lead War Boy and the party carrying Rictus clamber up with her and Angharad holds her breath as the winches lift them high. She knows Furiosa will be there but Max is another matter all together.

But there he is, in an oversized shirt, soft gauzy pants and boots. He looks better than she’s ever seen him, glowing in the sunlight, unchained, clothed, and free. His face is a blank mask until Rictus comes into view, then he cracks, pain twisting his handsome features. Angharad smiles to herself because he cares. He does. 

“We’ve come to surrender the Prince of the Waste to Imperator Furiosa and Max of the Citadel,” says the main War Boy. “On behalf of the War Boys who wait below, we pledge our allegiance to you and will drive and fight for you until we leave for Valhalla.” He slaps his chest to prove his point and goes down on a knee. The ones holding Rictus kneel as well and Max makes a distressed noise.

“Fuck your Valhalla. He’s hurt you idiots. Did you do anything to help him?”

“No sir,” the War Boy says, shaking his head. “We applied pressure where we could but none of us are Organics. We brought him home to die.”

“Fuck that,” Max snaps. He’s kneeling beside a War Boy a second later, taking Rictus’ face in his hands. They are calloused and huge and so gentle on that fierce face. “Hey, Rictus, wake up. It’s me.” He slaps his face softly. “It’s Max. Wake up.”

Rictus blinks and smiles, making the plastic of his jaw brace stretch. “Max.” He turns his head and rubs his nose against Max’s thumb. “Love.”

“Yeah. That’s right. It’s Love. You made it back.”

“Home,” he rumbles before his body seems to go even more lax. Angharad watches panic flash across Max’s face. 

“C’mon, mate. Can’t have you die on me too, you big bastard.”

Rictus’ eyes roll back in his head. “Get him down to the Organic,” Furiosa orders, speaking for the first time.

“The Organic died in the wasteland.”

“Are you arguing with me, Lash?” she demands, planting her hand on her hip.

“No, sir. Ma’am. We’re going ma’am.” 

Lash, Rictus, and the other War Boys disappear from sight leaving the three of them alone at the look out, staring down at the party of War Boys amidst the throng of the Wretched.

“So what do we do with them?” Angharad asks.

“Integrate,” Furiosa says with a sigh. “We can’t erase everything or it will fall apart and we need the security force. We can just…keep it humane this time. Make sure people eat, that they have a choice.”

“Leave the war religions, add some freedom and some free food,” Max clarifies.

“So far, that’s my plan.” She scrubs her face. “Corpus is still in the dungeons. I don’t know what to do with him now that Rictus is back.”

“Rictus proved himself loyal,” Angharad points out. “He’s the reason we’re here.”

“He proved himself loyal to Max. You haven’t even told me if you’re staying or not yet,” she snaps. 

Max meets her gaze and shrugs. “I’m staying until the pups are weened at least. Let that be enough.”

“I never said it wasn’t,” Furiosa replies.

Angharad sighs. “Of course it’s not. You would really leave your children?”

“We’re not having this conversation now,” Max says sharply. “I’m going to go down to Stitch and see how Rictus is. You can come with me or not. Up to you.”

“Do what you think is right. I’ve got to go deal with the War Boys and then there’s apparently something that needs to be fixed with the goats. Did you know this place had goats?” Furiosa asks.

Angharad watches Max’s jaw tighten. “Yes. I did.”


	15. Epilogue 1.2: He finds himself beside Rictus anyway.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max visits Rictus and talks to Furiosa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This Epilogue contains polyamory.
> 
> Polyamory means to be in a romantic relationship with more than one person. In Max's case that is both Rictus and Furiosa. Don't like it, now is the time to bail.

Max tells himself he’s just walking Angharad down to Stitch for a check up and finds Rictus in traction. His limbs are in metal casts and bound in white line around his bare midsection and around his head. He is limp and lax and pale. Angharad shoves Max away from her and toward Rictus. “Go talk to him.”

“He’s unconscious.”

“I could hear you when I was drifting. He’ll want you there.”

“Mm.”

“It’ll make him feel better,” Angharad says. “He’ll heal faster knowing you’re waiting for him.”

“I’m not.” Max growls.

“Aren’t you?”

He grits his teeth. “No.”

He finds himself beside Rictus anyway. He doesn’t touch him, doesn’t look at him, just on the floor beside his pallet and wonders how he got here. He tips his head back and rests it against Rictus’ shoulder, the only of undamaged piece near him. 

He remembers Rictus’ hands on him the two times he took him. Careful. Gentle. Worshipful. Loving. Rape, yes, but thinking on some of the things that they’ve gotten out of Corpus since taking control, Max knows now that it was no more consensual for Rictus than it was for him. 

There were more than seven other sons born alive to Immortan Joe who should be men now. Ten total who hadn’t suffered any deadly illness or mutation. Now there was only Rictus and Corpus left. Scrotus had died on Fury Road with his father but the rest? Based on what Corpus told them Immortan Joe ruled his family with harsher weapons than he did his people. Furiosa followed his directions to the graves that proved it.

So Max knew now that Rictus had been risking more than his father’s good graces when he dared to be gentle with him, had taken no small leap when he turned on the man in the canyon. He gave up everything and could still die and it was on Max’s shoulders, again, so maybe Angharad was right. Maybe he was waiting for Rictus to wake up, if only to tell the man to piss off.

Only that is utter shlanger. He could admit that inside his own head couldn’t he? He owes him too much and Rictus…Max doesn’t even know if he’d understand something like a gratitude fuck. The brute is probably an all or nothing sort of man. He left things on a kiss and probably Rictus let that carry him back here. 

It’s not enough to build on. Max won’t let it be. But Rictus will glom onto it anyway. He knows he will. His luck is just that kind of crap. 

“You ready to go?” Angharad asks, hands resting on her huge belly. 

Max finds himself mesmerized by the sight. That will be him in twenty-four weeks. One hundred seventy days. It’s simply not that far away. Stitch says he thinks there are at least three in there, most likely four based on the way he’s already carrying. Max has no reason not to believe him. He just doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he gets there. 

She snaps her fingers in front of his face. “Hello? Max? Love?”

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t ask that,” she points out with the utmost gentleness which is worse than harshness coming from her. Angharad’s anger is something he knows how to deal with. It’s an equal and opposite force he can react against. Her empathy just leaves him floundering. 

She takes his hand and helps him to his feet. He drapes his arm over her shoulder and reminds himself that it’s okay to feel safe. It’s okay to want to stay, even if he only truly feels that way when he’s with Angharad. He is allowed. He doesn’t have to run from the dead or the living anymore if he doesn’t want to. He simply has to decide if he does, in fact, want to.

Furiosa is waiting for them at the look out. She likes it there. She says she feels safer when she can see what’s going on. Max says she’s stupid for putting herself in the line of fire. They agree to disagree. 

“How is he?” She asks. She is dirty and sweaty and beautiful. 

Part of him wants to bear his neck to her. Part of him wants to run from her. He does neither, shrugging instead. “Stitch thinks he’ll live.”

“Which leaves us with the question of what to do with him?”

“Do with him,” Angharad repeats. “He nearly died getting us out.”

“And he killed hundreds working for Immortan Joe.”

“So did you,” Angharad retorts. “We’ve all done horrible things to survive. Rictus did less than Corpus with more ability. He was always kind when he could be which is more than I can say for most people.”

“And that’s enough to forgive?” Furiosa demands.

“We have to forgive, Furiosa, or we’re going to end up as bad as Joe.”

“What do you want?” Furiosa asks, turning to him. 

He feels gobsmacked. He opens and closed his mouth twice then waves his hand. “You two were handling it.” 

“We are, but I asked you what you want.”

“Like he’s my pet or something? I didn’t think we were going to follow in Joe’s footsteps like that.”

“We’re not but he’s here for you. He flipped the rig for you. Your opinion is the one that matters where Rictus is concerned.”

“So what, if I say I don’t care you’ll have him killed?” Max frowns at her. “You know what I’ll say if that’s the case.”

Furiosa folds her arms and shakes her head. “No. I just want to know where you stand.”

Max groans and drags his hand over his face. He’s tired. He wants to sleep for days but that’s the litter talking. In reality he could go for days more without sleep. He sighs and meets her green eyes steadily. “As long as I’m here, I want him here. He proved himself to me at least. If you need more from him, that’s between you and Rictus.”

She deflates a little. “Right. Then he stays. Capable and Nux have taken his room. Someone will have to tell him when he wakes up.”

“I will,” Angharad says cheerfully. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to have a place here.”

“Yeah,” Furiosa grunts. “Yeah I’m sure he will.”

“If you don’t want him here-“ Max begins but Furiosa cuts him off.

“What?” Her eyes flash with the rage she’s named for. “You’ll take him and go? Not an option. He can stay. It’s fine.” Then she says it again, and he knows its mostly for herself. “It’s fine.”


	16. Epilogue 1.3: I always want you, Max.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max confronts Furiosa and sex is had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This Epilogue contains polyamory, AlphaFemale/OmegaMale anal sex
> 
> Polyamory means to be in a romantic relationship with more than one person. In Max's case that is both Rictus and Furiosa. Don't like it, now is the time to bail.

Furiosa doesn’t see Max for four days and when she does he’s in her room wearing nothing bare foot in a loose shirt and his pants, which he has to leave open for his belly. He’s leaning against the wall near her bed, arms folded across his chest, glaring at her. “Tell me you’re not that much of a fucking knothead. That I’m seeing things.”

She shrugs and pulls off the replacement she’s already had made for her metal arm. She hangs it on the rickety chair and moves to the small basin in the corner. She’s not going to let him stop with her carrying out her evening ablutions. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Liar,” he purrs. “It’s so obvious you might as well try and piss a damn circle around me. I wasn’t sure before but I am now.” He crosses to her and takes her shoulders in his hands.

She refuses to look up and meet his gaze. She’s not going to play this game. She hasn’t had to in years and she’s not about to start again now. 

“Despite how things may appear, this isn’t the Stone Age, Imperator. I’m not a thing to be jealous over.” He bends down and licks behind her ear. She can’t control the full body shiver as he growls “I can want you both,” into her ear before nipping her earlobe.

She shudders and lifts her hand to bury in his hair. “Don’t tease me,” She warns as he leans into the touch. “You have no idea how you smell.”

“Like sex?” he asks. He licks his lips so pretty. They’re actually pink now that he’s had a chance to clean up, wash his face. She could bite them, suck them, lick them for hours. She’s never kissed him but she wants to. “Like a ripe juicy cunt you fucked full of pups? Tell me.”

“Yes. All of that.”

He presses himself bodily against her. “And what do you want, Alpha?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Just you.”

“Do you want to fuck me?” he demands and she can see it now, the trap. He’s baiting her. If she takes it they’re doomed but if she doesn’t, she doesn’t know how much better things will be.

“Of course,” she says because with their pheromones high like this he could probably smell a lie on her. “I always want you, Max. I’d be crazy not to.”

He glares her down. She glares back but it’s a hard thing. “You just don’t want anyone else to touch me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Didn’t need to.”

“I can’t be yours,” he snarls before he kisses her. He is all sharp teeth and strong tongue. He pulls her against him and rides his cock against her slowly swelling knot. 

“But Rictus?” She gasps when they pull apart. “You can be his?”

“It’s not black and white out here.” His calloused palms slide up under the hem of her shirt. They’re warm and rough and strangely soft. She shivers as they skate up his back. “You live in the grey or you die.”

She jumps and wraps her legs around his waist. Even pregnant he is strong enough to hold her lighter frame. They slot together like cogs in an a machine. “He’s the grey to you.” 

“He’s something,” Max replies, sliding his arms down to hold her around her lower back and beneath her ass. “Something I might want. I don’t know.” He sounds torn on this point, like it takes a world of effort for him to even say that much. “Decide now if you can deal with that.”

He leans away from her, doesn’t kiss her, doesn’t touch her except for where he’s holding her up. He really means it. It’s a simple yes or no.

“If I say no-“

“Won’t change anything with the pups. You’re their father.”

She tilts her head as she peers down at him. “And it won’t make you leave?”

He shakes his head. “Won’t make me stay either.”

She can live with this, she decides. She already shares him with the Wives. What’s one more person? What’s one more body? There will be three or four little bodies demanding all his time and attention soon. They don’t live in a vacuum and she is not Immortan Joe. Max is not her property. He is free to do what he likes and right now, in this moment, what he likes is her. She can live with that. 

“Then yes.”

“Thank fuck,” Max breathes and then kisses her again, walking them to her small rickety bed and dropping them both down. 

“What do you want?” She asks rolling them so that she’s on top. 

He smiles at her. “I want your knot in my hole,” he growls. “Fuck me deep, Furiosa. If you can.”

“You’re just playing with me now,” she observed shucking off her own shirt and dropping it to the floor. She grabbed for his and he batted it away. She let him keep it. The tattoo, she assumes, or the babies, or something else it isn’t her place to ask after. She goes for both their pants instead. They are already open and waiting for her. She goes back on her knees to divest them of the last of their clothing and then they are mostly naked. She doesn’t think she’s ever been naked in a bed with anyone in her whole life. 

“How do you want it?”

“Just like this. Now come on,” He grabs her by the hips and pulls her back over her. “I’m wet.”

“I know.” The smell of his slick is making her drunk. The smell is this close to cloying, stopping instead at dizzying. She reaches between them and touches his hole with hesitant fingers. He is slippery hot and sweet at his opening and her clit hardens and lengthens for him. 

She doesn’t bother to play games. She just slides home and captures his groan with her mouth. His legs come around her back for a moment then hitch up. “Shoulders,” he grunts and oh, yes. She drapes his knees over her shoulders and folds him in half, fucking in deep. His eyes roll back in his head and his cheeks flush pink in the drowsy cool of her room. The pressure of his fingertips will leave glorious bruises on her hips.

She rolls her hips slow and steady. She has the endurance to break him into tiny screaming pieces which is all she wants. She wants to him to scream her name. She actively wishes for the first time in years that she had two hands if only so she could wrap a fist around his cock and jerk him off in time to her thrusts. 

“Touch yourself,” she pants. “Please. Want to feel you come.”

“Yeah,” he groans. “Ugh. Yeah.” She feels him wedge his hand between them and strokes himself. His arm shakes between them. She watches his face as he takes his lower lip in his teeth. He bites down until blood blooms under his sharper Omega teeth, honed for mate biting. She wishes- She stops that line of thought cold and sucks his lip into her mouth to taste his blood. The flat copper-earth taste of him sates the mating lust just fine. 

He jerks back and shakes his head. “No. Kiss me while I come.”

Yes. She can do that.


	17. Epilogue 1.4: He wakes with a hand holding his.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rictus wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the first epilogue. The next one will be All About Babies and will likely be its own story. To those of you who stuck with me, thanks for taking the ride. 
> 
> Warning: This epilogue contains polyamory.
> 
> Polyamory means to be in a romantic relationship with more than one person. In Max's case that is both Rictus and Furiosa. Don't like it, now is the time to bail.

He wakes with a hand holding his. That is why he thinks at first he is dead. No one touches Rictus with kindness. That isn’t how things are done. 

Blinking awake in the low light, he sees his love beside him and is sure, now, he has died. He is in Valhalla. Max wouldn’t be here, not for him. It wouldn’t happen so he must be dead. But then Max is pulling away and that would never happen if he _were_ in Valhalla so maybe he’s alive after all.

“Max?” He rasps. His throat and mouth are so dry. He hasn’t had any aqua-cola since before he can remember. A week? Two? He doesn’t know.

“Here.”

“Why?”

“You grew on me.” His hand is taken up again. “I think you earned it.”

“I was awaited by you.”

He can see Max’s lips twitch just a little. “Maybe.”

He furrows his brown and tries to think of what else to ask. “Am I home?”

Max nods. 

“Am I dying?” That seems like a good question. 

“Not anymore.”

“Aqua-cola?” He hopes it comes out like a question and not a demand. He doesn’t want to demand anything from Max. Ever. Never again. 

“Stitch. Water.”

Moments later a canteen is pressed to his lips and Max’s hand is behind his head, holding him upright so he doesn’t choke. 

“You’ll be all right,” Max tells him gruffly, settling him back down on the pallet he’s sprawled on. He hurts everywhere but he believes Max. He has no reason not to.

“Did everyone make it? Furiosa? Cheedo? Angharad?” he asks. He has no way to know. He’s been stumbling around half-dead or wholly unconscious since he flipped the war rig. He hopes they are. Cheedo especially. She’s a nice girl. 

“Miraculously,” Max says. “Angharad’s ready to pop.”

Rictus smiles and sags back. “Good. That’s good.”

“And you made it,” Max points out. “That’s good, too.”

Rictus smile starts to hurt. He wishes he could move his arms. He wants to touch Max’s face. He can’t so he just looks at it and keeps smiling. “I guess it is.”

Max takes his hand again but this time he laces their fingers together. “It is. It’s good, Rictus.”

And because he has no reason not to, Rictus believes him.

(End Epilogue 1)

**Author's Note:**

> CHECK YOU THE AMAZING [FAN ART](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4126425) \- SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 8.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://dancinbutterfly.tumblr.com/) if you want to talk or make a fic request or anything really. I'm always around!  
> 


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